Weird Leadership

People who change things become fanatics first. I became obsessed with developing leadership a few years ago. Many friends thought I was weird. Some friends don’t hang with me anymore. I’m more committed to developing leadership than anyone around me.

Radical leaders create radical change.

Ordinary never satisfies. Fitting in doesn’t work.

Becoming weird:

Develop radical leadership by confronting radical problems.

Stop twiddling your thumbs while waiting for golden opportunities to fall from the sky. Address an issue others see but no one confronts.

Get off your butt and find a problem bigger than you. Big problems are big leadership opportunities.

After finding a big problem, find others who are pissed too.

Create a team of angry peoplewilling to stop talking and start doing.

Help others believe something must be done!

Warning:

Reject:

Magic pills

Quick fixes

Easy solutions.

If small worked, small leaders would have
already solved the challenge.

Difference:

Just do something. Create an underground movement to simplify bureaucracy in your organization, for example.

Change one thing at a time.

Create momentum.

Grow the team.

Seek wisdom from others.

Affiliate with other change instigators.

Press through resistance. Do-nothing people try to stop do-something people.

Get permission later.

People who change things look weird to the rest of us but they aren’t trying to look weird.

Radical dedication to mission makes leaders weirdto those who don’t share their mission.

Additionally, naysayers, sluggards, and drifters believe leaders who are dedicated to radical change are unbalanced, misguided; perhaps even delusional.

Secret:

Follow your anger. Things that make you mad reveal your heart. Transform anger into motivation. Get weird. If you aren’t weird, you don’t care enough.

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50 thoughts on “Weird Leadership”

The key is caring enough to do something to make a difference. The cause must be more important than my ego, my goals.
From the Apostle Paul to Livingstone, people who made huge differences were imbued with burning passion for the cause they espoused. This is “weird”, “freaky”, “fanatical” – but effective.
Collins got it right: Love the mission, be humble.

Dear Dan,
When I interviewed one of the retired chairman of the bank who transformed two banks, and when I asked the question – what made to dare to transform giant public sector bank. He told that he got power from his anger. He was in the system for the past 30 years and was witnessing that no one could dare to change the trend. When he got into capacity and power, He did it. So, I appreciate your point that many times anger makes you to work harder, think differently, do differently.
When people do not take decision and try to follow the trends just to avoid being trapped,actually tick me off. I am weird about changing myself to the best possible way that trying to influence people around. Actually, I feel proud when I find positive change in me.I also believe that change starts from self. Rest follows automatically. Trying to change others without changing self is like making castle in the air. And I think leaders do not do that.

A few years ago, I found myself on the receiving end of a difficult conversation with a local Fortune 100 company, angry at their initial response to an issue near and dear to my heart — global education. For about 2 full weeks, I was so radio active with fury that you couldn’t get near me. It was indeed weird to some and comical to others.

But something amazing happened in that space of anger. I learned to harness my anger as a catalyst for change, instead of accepting the status quo, leveraging my passion and finding allies who would join me in the fight. 18 months later, this company joined forces with the cause instead of rejecting it, serving a two-year term on the board of a key global education organization. In tandem with their support, our local school district began to implement global programming content their schools, including the opening of two International Baccalaureate schools.

It was a win for all and an important reminder of what’s possible when we step up and into our voice, working collaboratively with others to influence positive change. Thanks, Dan, for reminding us all that weird can be good! :-)

Thanks, Scott. Extremely proud of the effort and those leaders in both the public and private sector who were courageous enough to leverage their own influence to help further the cause. No one achieves anything alone.

Find and get a leader to get a United Nations Spaceport on the moon and I’ll believe you’ve begun to be radical. Have competing NASA, ESA, Indian, Chinese, Russian, etc mars missions launch from a shared UN Spaceport on the moon and I’ll believe you’re getting close to radical. Succeed with a string of manned International Space Stations around Mars and other planets/moons of our galaxy and I’ll think: hey, that man began to put leaders in place who could deliver the 21st century. Achieve a major off-planet mineral resource discovery and harness it for now-off planet “mineral” (rather than oil or extractive) “majors” and I’ll start to think: there’s a man creating leaders for our grand-children to respect. Crazy? Wierd? Like the guys from Planetary Resources Inc? Like the guys from Virgin Galactic? Like the guys from Space X? Like… All those other wanabee Captain Cooks, Christopher Columbuses, Marco Polos, Walter Rayleighs, Magellans,…

Dan, great post. This is one of those areas where we’re in full agreement. I’d add that we don’t need to do “big” things, but rather we need to do something. Many times we blow off small things thinking they won’t make much of a difference but often the greatest change begins with small actions. Once you decide you’re weird and you’re a doer, the small things start adding up.

Dan: Your posts are always great, but this post resonated so profoundly, both because I share your positive obsession with leadership and because science tells us that what we focus on grows.

The imperative to use changes, challenges and strengths to develop leadership, improved whole brain thinking and more effective communication is the focus of my work, my passion…and, yes it has become my positive obsession:)

Stay obsessed, Dan. Your work, your positive obsession is leadership in action! May we always lead forward with courage, humanity and integrity!

Thanks Dan. Thanks for sharing your insight into creating momentum within your organization.
One mistake I’ve done in the past (that everyone else can learn from…) is creating an environment of change without setting clear goals or direction. “Change is good” but without everyone pulling in the same direction it gets a bit messy. This is where taking the time to describe what and where you are going pays off big in the end. It takes time to figure out just how much control/freedom to give each project, but it is amazing when you get it right!

I see the voice of experience in your insights. One challenge leaders face is letting others catch up with their passion by giving clear direction, including others in the process, helping others see themeslves in the future.. .and so much more… thanks again

Dan, I truly am rolling on the floor laughing at my home office reading this. After my monthy Quality meeting this week, a disaster BTW, your words surely were meant for me. If I could translate all of your words into my job description I would be a stellar employee. Instead, as I work in an enviroment where the tradtional quality commitee has been more about reporting data than doing, and I seek to transform it to action, to stop talking and get off your but and do something- I too have been asked “What are you so mad about?” LOL And just 2 weeks ago, I was told “You take it so personal”. Absolutly I do, anything less is a waste of my time and a disrespect to those I serve. Thank you for reconfirming how good it is to be weird.

You made several really good points (as always!). Anger is something we all must acknowledge and use to our benefit not our detriment. By using anger as a change agent instead of just being angry and staying angry, anger then becomes beneficial because it is controlled and focused, I think about the Stages of Acceptance first addressed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and anger is a part of that process…. death or sudden loss brings about a myriad of emotions, anger included, and we must own it in order to move on. Anger often inspires passion. And passion can move us to action.

The other point you make that I really appreciate is DO SOMETHING! Too often we stand around or wait and we could be doing something. Start small. Momentum builds!

It is always the fanatics that cause change. The middle follows where the extreme leads. Politics is a good example. It is the extreme liberal or conservative that brings change. The middle doesn’t like either extreme view. The middle says that they want to change things, but never do and never will.

It will always be those with passion (weirdness) that will effect the world.

Thanks for the post and inspiration — I’m working on a similar topic for an upcoming talk: “How to Fuel Your Personal Fulfillment, When Professional Fit is Not Enough” – I’m learning to lean into my weirdness and loving it!

I like your difference #5: affiliate;
(So much so to make this my first comment. )

I see so many big time dreamers starting a brand new change network, one that will be so great if everyone just signs up for the(ir) NewWayOfDoingIt. And they are so into their own Way that they don’t even bother to see who else is doing ExactlyTheSameThing.
Is it The Change you care about or is it Your System that’s important.

All those other change makers are going to be so much more likely help if their existing efforts are respected enough to be contacted. Who knows, you might even learn something.

Dan, Lots of good stuff here, even though you’d probably now find yourself on watchlists in some national security agencies due to your revolutionary wording and talk of getting angry people together and make big changes. ;) I find anger, makes it hard for me to focus, so I work that out in the gym and am never angry at work. Frustrated, yes, Motivated yes, Angry, no.

I was classified as weird when I went from 6 years of university with a good degree in social sciences straight into the basement of a service industry. (both the hierarchial basement and literrally the basement of the buidling…) I litterally learnt every aspect of the business from the inside and from the bottom up.

25 years later I am a VP with global responsibilities in a multi-billion dollar company. It’s the same company I started in and I have worked my way up by employing many of the strategies in this post.

– Do one thing at a time.
– Convince others to join the drive to change.
– Learn that resistance is common.
– When someone says know it means your argument hasn’t been convincing enough, it doesn’t mean your plans for change are wrong.
– Trust your instict, do what’s necessary and as another way to put the last point in your post: Remember that it is always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

cool post, dan. just found the blog, i’m likin’ it.
i agree with your thoughts on finding passion and what drives us. often it’s out of anger. in my experience, i’ve found it important to toe a line between believing something radical and demonstrating that radical passion in a way that does not isolate my teammates around me (who will help bring that vision to fruition). that, in my opinion, is one of the biggest challenges – not isolating others who will help the change take effect.
anyways, cool post. i’ll be back!

While I get the underpinnings of your message the message itself could be improved. There are plenty of examples where misguided radicalism leads to things like 9/11 ; mass suicide in Jonestown and. China, consistent bombing of innocents in Israel, abortion doctors being murdered, and the big one….racism purity with Hitler.

There are plenty of examples of leaders who went radical to achieve great things: MLK, Mother Theresa, Bill Wilson, Thomas Edison , Galileo…

This suggests to me it isn’t radicalism that is key but a selfless drive to serve others and not yourself .

I like your blog, I get the idea of passion, being radical but your article came off to me as condescending. So count me among the group of naysayers, sluggards, and drifters who believe leaders who are dedicated to radical change are unbalanced, misguided; perhaps even delusional.

It will come as no surprise that the thing I am “weird about” is proper usage of language (and yes, Dan, I know you discussed that on your first webinar :-) :-)). It is possible to be TOO picky, but when people are blantantly careless with language, sometimes it conveys (or implies) to me that they don’t care about the bigger things if they don’t care about the smaller things. It’s a balancing act.

I love it .!!!
I’ve been called weird for years and knew it was because I saw, did, developed and had the nerve to articulate things that others would just think, feel and inertly know but could not project or create action.
Thanks for giving all us weirdos the validation that weird is good. There are times that it can be difficult and having a strong sense of principle is of utmost importance to keep moving forward.
I enjoy your posts … keep them comming. Enjoy your day!

As a now 8 year public servant, I’ve been mad since the day I got here. The day I stop being mad, is the day I probably ought to get out of the public service, because it means I’ve become one of the apathetic “but we can’t change bureaucracy” folks.